TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK WAR DEPARTMENT, May 1, 1862. Major-General Halleck, Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee: I am pressed by the Missouri members of Congress to give General Schofield independent command in Missouri. They insist that for want of this their local troubles gradually grow worse. I have forborne, so far, for fear of interfering with and embarrassing your operations. Please answer, telling me whether anything, and what, I can do for them without injuriously interfering with you.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL J. E. WOOL

WAR DEPARTMENT, May 4, 1862.

Major-General Wool, Fortress Monroe: The President desires to know whether your force is in condition for a sudden movement, if one should be ordered under your command. Please have it in readiness.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

RESPONSE TO EVANGELICAL LUTHERANS [May 6?], 1862

Gentlemen: I welcome here the representatives of the Evangelical Lutherans of the United States. I accept with gratitude their assurances

of the sympathy and support of that enlightened, influential, and loyal class of my fellowcitizens in an important crisis which involves, in my judgment, not only the civil and religious liberties of our own dear land, but in a large degree the civil and religious liberties of mankind in many countries and through many ages. You well know, gentlemen, and the world knows, how reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle forced upon me on my advent to this place by the internal enemies of our country. You all know, the world knows, the forces and the resources the public agents have brought into employment to sustain a government against which there has been brought not one complaint of real injury committed against society at home or abroad. You all may recollect that in taking up the sword thus forced into our hands, this government appealed to the prayers of the pious and the good, and declared that it placed its whole dependence upon the favor of God. I now humbly and reverently, in your presence, reiterate the acknowledgment of that dependence, not doubting that, if it shall please the Divine Being who determines the destinies of nations, this shall remain a united people, and that they will, humbly seeking the Divine guidance, make their prolonged national existence a source of new benefits to them

selves and their successors, and to all classes and conditions of mankind.

TELEGRAM TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDS

BOROUGH

FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 7, 1862.

Sir: Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained by a reconnaissance that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and he again requests that gunboats may be sent up the James River.

If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend with the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying gunboats, send the Galena and two gunboats up the James River at once. Please report your action on this to me at once. I shall be found either at General Wool's headquarters or on board the Miami.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

LETTER TO GENERAL G. B. MCCLELLAN

M

FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 9, 1862.

Y DEAR SIR: I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing part of a despatch to you relating to army. corps, which despatch of course will have reached you before this will.

I wish to say a few words to you privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organization not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals whom you had selected and assigned as generals of divsion, but also on the unanimous opinion of every military man I could get an opinion from (and every modern military book), yourself only excepted. Of course I did not on my own judgment pretend to understand the subject. I now think it indispensable for you to know how your struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one or two pets and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, Heintzelman, or Keyes. The commanders of these corps

are of course the three highest officers with you, but I am constantly told that you have no consultation or communication with them; that you consult and communicate with nobody but General Fitz-John Porter and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say these complaints are true or just, but at all events it is proper you should know of their existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your orders in anything?

When you relieved General Hamilton of his command the other day, you thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in the Senate. And here let me say, not as applicable to you personally, that senators and representatives speak of me in their places as they please without question, and that officers of the army must cease addressing insulting letters to them for taking no greater liberty with them.

But to return. Are you strong enough—are you strong enough, even with my help-to set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes all at once? This is a practical and very serious question for you.

The success of your army and the cause of the country are the same, and of course I only desire the good of the cause.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.